I agree with you. We should be talking about how Bush got us into this mess and how Obama made the mistake of trying to kiss Republican asses by giving them everything they wanted, only so they could turn around and say "Nah...we don't want that anymore. it might actually WORK and that would be a victory for you!".

Yep it would be nice if we could get to just the facts and truth rather than dealing with soup kitchen BS and jokers trying to blame OBAMA for Republican actions.

Now Tony, who was it who signed into law the repeal of half of the sections of Glass-Steagall? Who signed into law the Community Reinvestment Act? Two pieces (certainly not the only two) of legislation that directly led to the severity of this last recession, and both of which occured before Bush's time. Plenty of blame to spread around, and the stink falls on both parties over a long time period.

I agree with you here for the most part but I will say this: Which third party? Libertarians will drive us to civil war in a matter of months if they get their way (and I was a Libertarian for about 8 years) with that 'states rights' nonsense. Green Party? I am not even sure what the Hell they stand for anymore?! Constitutionalist Party? No...I have no desire to live under a Christian (or any other religious) Theocracy. And that is the problem. Are Dems and Republicans shitty? Yes. Is that shittiness equal? No. Dems are guilty of letting Conservatives control the debate and propagandize so much that you could find a funny Dane Cook performance before you find a Democrat who identifies as a "Liberal". And the result of this is that the 'middle' is now to the far Right and 'Left of Center' is now considered 'Lunatic Left" and people practically have to get caught lynching a black man before any will call them "Far Right". So rather than fix this you would rather we just vote for a third party candidate. But WHO is that candidate? Ron Paul... A racist Creationist?! Who? Because if we all just go voting for whomever strikes their fancy what we end up with is either a Democrat or Republican doing the same things they always do (or far worse as we saw with Bush) or a candidate who is insane and much worse. It pains me to say that because I voted for Nader in 2000 and I knew that us Nader voters were going to cost Gore the election (Which I was actually happy about at the time).
Trust me I am no Clinton fan and I do not remember teh details of the Community Reinvestment act so give me a few to get re-acquainted.

LOL. Hard to be a fan of any of them in the light of history.

But the point is that there is no single administration or Congress at fault for this one. (R) and (D) both did their parts, over many years, sometimes partisan and sometimes bipartisan. It's debatable that Bush could turn back the events already in motion even if he knew exactly what needed to be done. Not sure ANYone could have. When you have Fed chairmen cheerleading those things that caused the problem...

Passed in the late '70s, CRA loosened the mortgage lending standards. Good intentions, maybe, but combined with other legislation like that partial Glass-Steagall repeal it took us right to the root of the derivatives mess and "too big to fail". Can't forget the Fed's role in providing air for the housing bubble, in part by keeping lending rates too low for too long.

Monday-morning economic quarterbacking, I know. With any luck, some lessons are learned.

But the rates are much lower now, and soon they will be low for an even longer period than before. That likely won't bode well.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so subtle in my sarcasm. When Obama was cruising to victory in 2008, I didn't hear complaints about the electoral system or how stupid voters were. Now that it appears Obama is cruising for a defeat, suddenly the electoral system is bad and voters are stupid.

Also, you do get to pick the nominees. There is this thing called 'primaries'.

Voters are always stupid. The fact that they blame Obama for the mess the Republicans made says it all. If voters were smart, they'd vote for a third party en masse but the truth is that most people in the US vote for the same party each time regardless of what that party has been up to so tell me how that isn't stupid?

And people have always found the US electorate system to be dubious at most - when it's not the amount of votes that count, it's not a democracy full stop.

What bugs me the most about the situation, is that he takes credit for something he didn't do. Thing is, most people don't even KNOW places where you can volunteer to help out and most places have ample volunteers anyway (for example, a local monastary organised dinner with proceeds going to Africa - there were at least twice as many volunteers than were needed) so it's all a moot point anyway because, believe it or not, most places that need volunteers have a surplus of them, not a shortage.

When I was in highschool, a friend's sister (who went to Catholic highschool) was given the assignment to do some volunteer work and write an assignment and she went to dozens of different places and got turned down. She was even willing to continue helping out after the assignment but most places said they already had too many helpers and had to work on rotation so everyone got a chance to help out. The only group she found that was willing to "hire" her, was an anti-litter organisation that would go in groups to pick up litter on streets and from the side of the roads which made for a very dull paper to say the least.

Perhaps I wasn't clear, if you heard no criticism in 2008, it's because you weren't listening. Your bias is playing tricks on you. Your sarcasm was anything but subtle, it merely implied that you had a view of reality that was at odds with actual reality.

As for nominees, lol, yeah sure, primaries. That's how Christians who I've spent a lifetime listening to them telling me that Mormons aren't real Christians and that mostly fucking hated Romney, end up having to support Romney 100%.

Primaries are part of the same game, you DO NOT get to pick the candidates, those are picked for you, undesirable ones will be shunned by both major parties and the media alike and will have a hard time even being listed on primary ballots, let alone election ballots.

What bias do I have? I'm just asking some questions.

Concerning choosing candidates, the Tea Party didn't like the Republican candidates that were put up so they put up their own. These were often people with no political ties or experience. Sometimes they win. Sometimes they lose. And when they win, the Republican Party gets very upset.

In 2008, Hillary Clinton was considered the favored candidate to win the primaries, but then Obama showed up. And I recall Bill Clinton winning the nomination in 1992 was a surprise to many big Democrats at the time.

I'm trying to understand your complaint. Are you expressing surprise that undesirable candidates are shunned by the major political parties? If they are undesirable candidates, then few people will be voting for them thus losing the primary. It sounds to me that the process is working very democratically when the undesirable candidate loses to a vote or cannot get signatures to get his or her name on the ballot.

I see there is a political discussion going on here, but this might not be the best place for it. Your smiles cannot be seen by others, so it's hard to determine who has the most beautiful one and thus wins the argument. Now it's just confusing for everyone.

Well the answer to your question - who to vote for? - is somewhat in your post. Today's Democrats are slightly right of center, and the Republicans are off the charts. But there are people who might be outside the two party lines yet represent them better than people within those lines. Regardless, the only person who stands out to me as having a consistent pro-liberties, anti-war, anti-corporations record is Dennis Kucinich (he's still a Dem). I'd vote for him before any of these other schmucks. Kucinich is one of the few true honest Democrats, because the rest of them decided to lower themselves to current Republican standards.

My solution isn't to vote for some random third party. It's to elect someone who stands for the principles we THINK the Democrats or Republicans carry (social liberalism + fiscal conservatism). The people who fit that bill probably would have to run as a third party since they don't align with either party's policy of bending over for Wall St. and the military-industry complex at every turn.

Nobody's perfect, I suppose, but voting for the "lesser of two evils" needs to run its course. I don't think the entire two-party system needs to be abolished. The people that currently inhabit seats of power from the comforts of their parties need to be thrown out, though. But as long as most Americans decide their votes on single issues, we'll continue to see the same ping pong every four years.

My solution, to get rid of all of the cancer within government, is the logical one, but I never said it was the probable one. But I'd guess that in a few more election cycles the current GOP leadership might be dissolved, and perhaps we might see a minor movement toward sanity and see the two parties shift back to the left a bit.

RE Ron Paul - he was the only person during the primaries who consistently called out the drug war as being a racist one. The media ran with stories of him being racist (a newsletter from the 70s or something that he didn't authorize), just like they ignored him and outright omitted him when he was finishing in the top 3 in numerous states.

If I truly had no other practical choices, I'd go with a Creationist who is anti-war over a Creationist who is pro-war.

But bailouts are helping the poor? Right...? RIGHT?!?!

Oh, most certainly. That's why unemployment is at an all time low.

hehe, but at least SOME people kept their jobs! :P